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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cA short story\u201d<\/p>\n
Just minding my own business and I meet someone that seemed so nice. He was a friendly sort of feller until the subject of politics came up. He said, \u201cI don\u2019t talk about politics or religion\u201d. Well I thought, there are a lot of things other than that to talk about so I said, Do you like to go fishing\u201d? \u201cNope don\u2019t go fishing\u201d. \u201cWell how about hunting\u201d? \u201cNope don\u2019t believe in killing animals\u201d. \u201cWhat about cage fighting\u201d, I said. \u201cOh yea, I love it, all the blood you know\u201d. \u201cDo you have good neighbors where you live\u201d? \u201cNope, they\u2019re mister goody two shoes, if you know what I mean\u201d, he said. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t\u201d, I answered \u201cwhat do you mean\u201d? Suddenly, his eyes turned to the right and to the left quickly and then straight at me. He began to pace back and forth, kind of like a cat, never taking his eyes off my eyes. His voice turned rough and gravelly sounding. I kind of moved back a way, giving him more room to move you know. His arms started to flail around too. \u201cWell, it all started when their stupid dog got into my garbage can and scattered it everywhere. Then their dumb kids came in my yard without my permission to pick it up. Of course, I ran them off. They do all kind of radical stuff over there too\u201d. \u201cWhat kind of radical stuff\u201d, I asked. \u201cWell, the idiot of the house, the old man you know, took a sign out and stuck it up in the front yard\u201d. \u201cWhat did it say\u201d, I asked. Suddenly, a cloud went over the sun, turning everything dark. His hands started ringing as if a hissy-fit was coming. The pacing intensified and I moved back further. \u201cStupid! Stupid! Why it said that, that stupid, Donald Trump for President! How could a human being be so stupid as to vote for that stupid idiot? I went over, you know because I love confrontation\u201d. I asked him, \u201cWhat the hell be thought he was doing putting that stupid sign, of that stupid man next door to my house, people will think I am as stupid as you. And do you know what stupid did then? Can you believe this, he just looked at me and said, \u201cDonald Trump is Gods man\u201d? \u201cThen he just turned and went back into his house\u201d. As I observed my new friend\u2019s red angry face, I then asked, \u201cBy the way I didn\u2019t catch your name\u201d. As in a blink of an eye he was back to normal, \u201cWhy my name is Mr. Sane\u201d. \u201cMay I ask you a personal question Mr. Sane\u201d I asked. \u201cWell I guess so\u201d he replied. \u201cDo you hate your neighbor next door, oh, what was his name\u201d? \u201cWhy, his name is Mr. Emanuel and I don\u2019t hate him\u201d. \u201cBut you don\u2019t like the way he lives and what he believes in\u201d, I said. \u201cI am against everything he is, thinks, and what he stands for. He believes stupid stuff\u201d. \u201cAre you jealous of him\u201d? I asked. \u201cHell no\u201d Mr. Sane replied, \u201cbut he doesn\u2019t deserve to have that motor home and that stupid boat in his yard. He thinks he is better than us\u201d. \u201cDo you think that Mr. Emanuel is a Christian\u201d? I asked. \u201cI don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t care, he can be anything he wants to be\u201d, he replied. \u201cYou say you don\u2019t hate him but you are against what he owns and believes in. You say you are not jealous of him, but you are mad at what he possesses. Do you hold bitterness and disdain for him? Do you think you could murder him given the chance\u201d? \u201cWhat, of course not, what is this, you ask to many questions\u201d he shot back. \u201cDo you read much Mr. Sane\u201d? \u201cWhat\u201d, he barked. \u201cDo you have a dictionary? Do you have any idea how your very own name is written in the Greek language? The word Sane is a verb meaning, to hate, to come to hate, to set against, to hold bitter disdain, an emotion to plot torture and murder\u201d. Mr. Sane became deathly quiet. \u201cYour neighbor Mr. Emanuel is a Christian; do you know what his name means Mr. Sane\u201d? \u201cI have no idea\u201d Mr. Sane answered shyly. \u201cEmanuel means, \u201cGod With Us\u201d. If Mr. Emanuel is a Christian, it means that God is with him. Jesus said, if they hated me, they will hate you also. Could it be that because you hate your neighbor Mr. Emanuel, that you also hate God, Mr. Sane\u201d? \u201cNo, No, that can\u2019t be, it can\u2019t be\u201d said Mr. Sane. Then great tears began to roll from his eyes. He began to say \u201cNo, no, I don\u2019t hate you God, no, not you. I didn\u2019t know, please forgive me, please, in hating my neighbor, I was hating you\u201d. Suddenly Mr. Sanes\u2019 whole countenance changed, a peace that you could almost touch was all around him. A sudden quiet fell all around us. Mr. Sane said \u201cI\u2019ve got to go, I\u2019ve got to go and tell Mr. Emanuel how sorry I am\u201d. The last time I ever saw Mr. Sane he was running, or maybe dancing down the street towards Mr. Emanuel\u2019s House. I looked up and the sky seemed bluer and the birds seemed to sing exceptionally sweeter.<\/p>\n
David McClary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Hater \u201cA short story\u201d Just minding my own business and I meet someone that seemed so nice. He was a friendly sort of feller until the subject of politics came up. He said, \u201cI don\u2019t talk about politics or religion\u201d. Well I thought, there are a lot of things other than that to talk … Continue reading “The Hater”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[95,81,94],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-post","tag-bitterness","tag-forgiveness","tag-hate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7MyQu-4a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}